POP CULTURE
LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF
HAPPINESS
Contents
'Pop' means
'Pop'
means 'popular', so 'pop culture' is culture that is popular, culture that is
produced for and enjoyed by the majority of people. 'Pop' con be serious but
it's always fun. It's art and entertainment. It's easy to listen to, easy to
look at, and easy to think about. No one needs a university education to enjoy a
Superman film, read a Batman comic, or follow the plot of a Bugs Bunny cartoon!
It's not difficult to understand
why the American nation, which invented mass production and mass media, should
be the inventors of a new culture, but why has it
been so successful? Why do people all over the world dress like cowboys, drink
Coca Cola and dance rock and roll?
Pop Art
Pop art in
America was, at first, a reaction against abstract art which the public found
difficult or sometimes impossible to understand. When artists like Andy Warhol
and Roy Lichtenstein started painting 'pop' in the early sixties, their
paintings were immediately accepted by the public because they were fun, they
were colourful, and because everyone could understand them!
They were also easy to copy and mass-produce
do everyone could have a 'pop art' poster on their wall. Some people thought
that Warhol's paintings of soup this, Coca cola bottles and Marilyn Monroe
'glorified' American society, but it's possible that by the end of the 20th
century they will be seen as a criticism of American materialism. Today,
we can see pop art all around us-on record sleeves, advertisements, book and
magazine covers, children's comics, wall-paper and...? Can you think of any
other examples?
Pop music
One of the first mass media was sheet music. In 1907 ,the lyrics and music
of forty popular American songs were published. They each sold over a million
copies in the first year-the earliest form of pop music! People all over America
were suddenly singing and playing the same songs in their living-rooms. There ,
in the 1920s, the radio invaded the American home. There were already three
hundred radio stations broadcasting in 1930. People started buying records
and writing fan letters. In 1960s "Presleymania" invaded America .
Now pop music has invaded the the whole world .Even the
Chinese want to rock and roll, and people of all nationalities
are learning their first English words through the lyrics of pop songs.
Pop singers are sometimes considered to be spokesmen and spokeswomen of their
generation......
Pop Heroes
Most
of pop 'heroes' come from the world of cinema. In the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood
was making over 700 films a year and inventing the idea of mass entertainment.
American movies showed a glamorous, exciting vision of America with new 'heroes'
- some with supernatural powers like Superman, some which re-told the story of
America's past. The heroic and handsome cowboys, the 'goodies' and 'baddies of
gangster films are now world stereotypes and pop heroes have become commercial
products.
James Dean posters sell jeans in Japan. Marilyn Monroe's face can sell pens,
belts, sweaters and clocks! A modern hero -'Rambo'-has even become a brand of
chewing-gum. The world of Disney also gave us other more sentimental 'heroes'.
Mickey Mouse is everyone's friend. He's cute and amusing. He could never be a
'baddie', could he?
Webmaster